Chikungunya virus (CHIKV) is a human pathogen and one of the leading causes of mosquito-borne arthralgia in parts of Africa, India and Southeast Asia. The disease of the same name, Chikungunya is a transmitted by Chikungunya virus (CHIKV)-carrying Aedes mosquitoes. Since Chikungunya symptoms are very similar to Dengue fever, it is often misdiagnosed. In the year 2006, total number of 1,390,322 suspected Chikungunya fever cases was reported in India. The disease was unknown in Singapore until 2008, when it experienced its first successive waves of Chikungunya fever. According to Singapore Ministry of Health and The Strait Times, the total number of infections in the last five years is about 1500. With no specific treatment or any licensed vaccine to prevent Chikungunya, the disease remains a public health threat.
Therefore, there is a need to develop an effective vaccine against the disease caused by the Chikungunya virus.